CAMP

CAMP

The College Assistance Migrant Program, (CAMP) at Sacramento State has helped more than a thousand students from migrant and seasonal farmworker backgrounds succeed in college.

The program is primarily funded by a grant from the U.S. Department of Education. Students whose parents are migrant and seasonal farmworkers are one of the most underrepresented groups in higher education. The program provides students with outreach, admission, academic and personal support services.

Created in 1981, CAMP admits 80 freshmen to the university each year and provides follow-up services to approximately 300 continuing students.

CAMP’s goal is to help students become leaders and active participants in the community. To promote the importance of higher education, hundreds of parents and students are brought to Sacramento State yearly for special presentations and campus tours. This exposure to the university environment encourages students and family to prepare and plan early to attend college.

For Olga Arellano, the principal of Ethel Baker Elementary, CAMP was her ticket to college. “CAMP counselors were my social and emotional saviors,” she says. Having worked alongside her mother at an industrial chroming plant, she had added incentive to get her degree. After teaching several years she took charge at Baker, where more than eight languages are spoken and some 60 percent of the students are English- language learners.

Lorena Marquez, whose thesis is listed on the first page of the digital history project is also a CAMP graduate.

For more information go to http://www.csus.edu/CAMP/